Mary Frann

When Bob Newhart decided to do a sitcom after more than a decade of standup comedy, he had one nagging worry: “I didn’t know if people would accept me as a psychologist,” he says. In fact, he adds, he wasn’t sure audiences in 1972 would be comfortable with the whole concept of psychology. “At that time, people didn’t really accept psychologists,” he says “They’d say, ‘Why are you going to talk to a psychologist? Talk to Mrs. Murphy, she knows …